§ 35. p. 626.) Herodicus, who is sometimes called ProdioiiR (Plin. //. N. xxix. 2), lived at Athens a short time before the Peloponnesian war. Plato sa}~s that he was not only a sophist (Piat. Prolog. I. c.}, but also a master of the gymnasium (Id. Rep. iii. p. 406), and physician (Id. Gore/. % 2. p. 448), and in fact he united in his own person these three qualities. He was troubled, says the same author, with very weak health, and tried if gymnastic exercises would not help to improve it ; and having perfectly succeeded, he imparted his method to others. Before him medical dietetics had been entirely neglected, espe­cially by the Asclepiadae. (Id. Rep. iii. p. 406.) If Plato's account may be taken literally (Id. Pkaedr. p. 228), he much abused the exercise of gymnastics, as he recommended his patients to walk from Athens to Megara and to return as soon as they had reached the walls of the latter town.* The author of the sixth book De Morb. Vulgar. (Hippocr. Epidem. vi. c. 3. vol. iii. p. 599) agrees with Plato : 4; Herodicus," says he, " caused people, attacked with fever, to die -from walking and too hard exercise, and many of his patients suffered much from dry rubbing." A short time after we find, says Fuller (Medi-cina Gymnastica, &c. Loud. 1718, 8vo), that Hip­pocrates (De Vict. Hat. iii. vol. i. p. 716), with some sort of glory, assumes to himself the ho­nour of bringing that method to a perfection, so as to be able to distinguish ir6r€pov t& <nriov Kpctreei tovs TroVous, I) ot ttotoi to. <rm'a, •/} /xerpfws €%ei Trpos &AAi7Aa, as he expresses it. Pursuant to this, we find him in several places of his works recommending several sorts of exercises upon proper occasions ; as first, friction or chafing, the effects of which he explains (De Vict. Rat. ii. p. 701), and tells us, that in some cases it will bring down the bloatedness of the solid parts, in others it will incarn and cause an increase of flesh, and make the part thrive. He advises (ibid. p. 700) walking, of which they had two sorts, their round and straight courses. He gives his opinion (ibid. p. 701) of the 'AvaKiv^^ara, or preparatory exercises, which served to warm and fit the wrestlers for the more vehement ones. In some cases he advises the TlaA^, or common wrest-

ling (ibid.}^ and the '

or wrestling by the hands only, without coming close, and also the, Kcypu/fOjUaxiX or the exercise of the Corycus, or the hanging ball (see Antyllus, apud Mercur. cle, Arte-Gymn. p. 123) ; the Xeipofo/xfa, a sort of dex­terous and regular motion of the hands, and upper parts of the body, something after a military man­ner ; the 'AAiVS^tm, or rolling in sand ; and once (ibid, p. 700) wo find mentioned, with some ap­probation, the "H-iTeipoL "iTTTroi, Equi Indefinite by which is probably meant galloping long courses in the open field.

As for Galen, he follows Hippocrates in this, as closely as in other things, and declares his opinion of the benefit of exercises in several places ; his second hook " De Sanitate Tuenda," is wholly upon the use of the slriyil, or the advantage of

regular chafing: he has written a little tract, Uepl rov 5ta MiKpas ^tyaipas Tv/nvaviov, where­in he recommends an exercise, by which the body and mind are both at the same time aifected. In his discourse to Thrasybulus, IT<J-repov 'larputTJs $) Tv/ni/aa-Tiicris ecrri rb Ir£'yitiv6v, he inveighs against the athletic and other violent practices of the gymnasium, but approves of the more moderate exercises, as subservient to the ends of a physician, and consequently part of that art. The other Greek writers express a similar opinion ; and the sense of most of them in this matter is collected in Oribasius's " Collecta Medi-cinalia." In those remains which are preserved of the writings of Antyllus, we read of some sorts of exercises that are not mentioned by Galen or any former author ; among the rest the Cricilasia as the translators by mistake call it, instead of Crico'tlasia. This, as it had for many ages been disused, Mercurialis himself, who had made the most judicious inquiries into this subject (De Arte Gymnastica, 4to. Amstel. 1672), does not pretend to explain ; and I believe, says Freind (Hist, of* Physic, vol. i.), though we have the description of it set down in Oribasius (Coll. Medic, vi. 26), it will be hard to form any idea of what it was.

The ancient physicians relied much on exercise in the cure of the dropsy (compare Hor. Epist. i. 2. 34. " Si noles sunns, curres hydropicus"), whereas we almost totally neglect it. (Alexander Trallianus, De Medic, ix. 3. p. 524, ed. Basil.) Hippocrates (De Intends Affection, sect. 28. vol. ii. p. 518) prescribes for one that has a dropsy ToAcuTrcopicu, or fatiyufag-exerdses, and he makes use of the same word in his Epidemics, and almost always when he speaks of the regimen of a dropsi­cal person, implying, that though it be a labour for such people to move, yet they must undergo it ; and this is so much the sense of Hippocrates, that Spon has collected it into one of the new Apho­risms, which he has drawn out of his works. Celsus says of this case (De Medic, iii. 21. p. 152, ed. Ar­gent.), "Concutiendum. multa gestatione corpus est." The Romans placed great reliance upon exercise for the cure of diseases ; and Asclepiades, who lived in the time of Pompey the Great, brought this mode of treatment into great request. He called exercises the common aids of physic, and wrote a treatise on the subject, which is mentioned by Celsus in his chapter " De Frictione " (De Medic, ii. ] 4. p. 82.), but the book is lost. He carried these notions so far, that he invented the Lecti Pcnsiles (Plin. II. N. xxvi. 8) or hanging beds, that the sick might be rocked to sleep ; which took so much at that time, that they came afterwards to be made of silver, and were a great part of the luxury of that people ; he had so many particular ways to make physic agreeable, and was so exquisite in the invention of.exercises to supply the place of medi­cine, that perhaps no man in any age ever had the happiness to obtain so general an applause ; and Pliny says (ibid. c. 7) by these means he made him­self the delight of mankind. About this time the Ro­man physicians sent their consumptive patients to Alexandria, and with very good success, as we find by both the Plinys ; this was done partly for the change of air, but chiefly for the sake of the exer-

CJ - ' *f

cise by the motion of the ship ; and therefore Celsiis says (De Medic, iii. 22. p. 156), " Si-vera Phthisis est, opus est longa navigation e ;" and a little after he makes Vehicuhim and Navis to be t\yo of